Discussions about AMD Processors and overclocking. Need help with that new AMD CPU or not sure which one to buy? Like to void your warranty? This is the place for you! Please keep the topic on Processors only!

Hey Guys,
Some of you know me from the memory forum but now that I have good memory I need OCing help. I have an Athelon 2800 Barton on a MSI K7N2-Delta-L board. I just got 1GIG of XMS 3200C2PT Matched pair. I have a Maxtor 120GB ATA 133 Boot drive with another Maxtor 30GB ATA133 as a storage. I am using a Radeon 9600SE( I know I need a 9800).I am running onboard sound for the moment. The chipset is Nvidia Nforce2 Ultra400. I have all the latest drivers and have flashed the bios to update that. I guess I would like to know if anyone has a similar setup that can give me their numbers such as mem timings and voltage as well as clock speed and Vcore voltage on the cpu. I tried to go to 400FSB but for some reason Windows won't load past 368. The memory doesn't seem to be a problen at all except I tried a 1:1 ratio at 2-2-2-8 and got a no post but I had the fsb at 400 at the time and haven't tried the timings alone yet.

If you can try lowering the multi on the cpu if you set it to [email protected] and then @10 and when you reboot it tells you that the cpu speed has changed then you have an unlocked chip. If it does not change then your chip is locked and all you can do is push the fsb. its possible that you have a 2800 that just cant quite make it to 400fsb. The average overclock on the 2800 is around 2.35 according to the overclockers.com cpu database. a 2800+ running at 400fsb locked would be at 2.5ghz so that may be why your having problems, your right about the average overclock now.

"Don't open that! It's an alien planet! Is there air? You don't know!"

Do you know the CPU stepping and build date of you'r CPU? That will also tell you if the CPU is unlocked or not and how will it will OC........... Pre week 0339 as a rule are unlocked.....some steppings of the lower end Bartons and T-Breds are locked a few weeks before that date.

what numbers do I look at to determine stepping and build date? I may have to buy another cpu and I know a few little places that may have unlocked CPUs,if I knew what to look for... I was also wondering which CPU would you guys buy if you had to stay under $150.00 or so?

Merlin, I take it you want to stick with AMD, with which I have no experience, yet.
If I was intersted in learning O/Cing, I have heard great things about the Intel 2.4 C, and had a great experience with the 2.8 E Prescott, both pretty inexpensive CPUs.

CPU-Z is a great utility that can tell you some info about your CPU. It wont give the date code or anything like that on CPU's though. You have to take the CPU out and read the label to get the week and year code.

I have the CPU in my hand...How do I interpret the numbers on the CHIP? also where,if its now in my MOBO manual,can I find out what a sporatic beep is from. The system speaker has been beeping sporatically, just one or two beeps then nothing for a while.

Well, if you are wanting to get into O/Cing, you need to get used to extreme/alternative cooling. stock cooling will not take you very far at all.
With the 2.8 E I used a $30 Zalman and was fine up to 3.5. As far as cost to performance I have heard great things about the 2.4 C, I think infinite uses one of those, so he could probably elaborate more.
Was just giving a point of view, I have next to no experience with an
AMD, so I won't comment on them. I read an article in last months MAX PC that touched on all AMDs being locked for awhile now.

I have a thermaltake silent boost cooler and before I ran into trouble I had my XP2800 up to 2.44 from stock 2.08 just on FSB adjustment and only 36'C so I think the silent boost was working well. I thought about a Zelman but had two problems. 1 my case is too small. The heatsink would have hit my PS. 2 I read on both AMD's site and my MOBO's site that the Zelman is too heavy and may damage the socket if moved at all. I was not aware that you could use a mobile cpu on a desktop.

XP's and XP-M's are basicly the same chip....the XP-m are just higher quality and thus can run at a lower voltage and that making it run cooler for use in a laptop. OC'ers have been using them in desktops for a few months now, beating AMD multi locking trick, all XP-M are unlocked letting the CPU underclock itself when it isn't being used that hard, letting it run cooler and savinf battery life. The unlocked XP-M's have been a life saver to the AMD OCer crowd........ :D I just installed a unlocked Barton 2500 in my system yesterday, I got it in a trade for some work I did for a guy........Let the good times roll...........it's a week 0323......AQXEA. Not the best OC'er, but better than a locked chip....... :twisted: